What's the Big Idea Game Show: Student Judges

This post features behind-the-scenes content about the 2021 NMF Live Performance Series event "What's the Big Idea? A Game Show Featuring Students and Mathematicians" (opens new window), created and hosted by The Young People's Project (opens new window).

Student Judges (MS, HS, and College Level) were each asked to research a mathematician of their choice, finding one thing they liked about the person and being able to talk about it in 30 seconds using “People Talk.”

Here are the students’ videos:

Middle School

Francis Fotso-Towa: Gloria Ray Karlmark

2021 National Math Festival: Francis Fotso Towa - What's the Big Idea (opens new window)

Nailah Hamyar: Annie Easley Oslo

2021 National Math Festival: Nailah Hamyar - What's the Big Idea (opens new window)

High School

Sakina Cotton: Benjamin Banneker

2021 National Math Festival: Sakina Cotton - What's the Big Idea (opens new window)

Maryam Faaziah: Katherine Johnson

2021 National Math Festival: Maryam Faaizah - What's the Big Idea (opens new window)

University

Timinte Abraham: David Blackwell

Hi I’m Timinte Abraham, and I’m a freshman in college. Someone I’d like to talk about is David Blackwell, who was a statistician and mathematician who made significant contributions to game theory, probability theory, information theory and Bayesian statistics and who broke racial barriers when he was named (1965) the first African American Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Arianna Gaston: Mary Jackson

2021 National Math Festival: Arianna Gaston - What's the Big Idea (opens new window)